The Deal
by Protector of the Gray Fortress
Summary: Sister fic to "Illusion for the Moment", takes place shortly after EMPT. A lot more happened during the Hiatus then we know.


**This for everyone in the fandom that might be feeling down lately. Especially for KCS, to whom I owe my pen, but always urges me to share it with others. **

**This takes place shortly after EMPT, and is my take on how Watson dealt with his three year accumulation of grief. **

**I can think of no better way of summarizing than to quote one of the master writers themselves;**

**"The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal." – C. S. Lewis**

* * *

I remember little of the dream in retrospect…but that is often the way with dreams is it not? Especially with nightmares. The instant one awakens every detail and moment of horror is recalled in perfect clarity…until the clear sense of reality drives back the clinging, shadowy terrors, and you begin to feel the sweat-soaked sheets tangled around your limbs and the mattress beneath your trembling hands…and If you are very lucky, a pair of steady arms around your shoulders.

Of course…sometimes it is not the arms you are desperately hoping for.

It had happened numerous times before, not long after the incident at the falls. For weeks after my return, alone, from Switzerland, I had had to watch my friend fall dozens of times over, sometimes in Moriarty's clutches, sometimes flailing wildly as I only just missed him…and sometimes catching him in time to grasp at his arm and feel it slip insubstantially from my fingers like so much sand, as his wide, terrified eyes tore at me and my name emerged as useless plea for help from his mouth.

On each of those occasions, I had awoken gasping and shaking, and my eyes wet with tears--but always with those arms wrapped around me and a quiet gentle voice in my ear, tinged with the pain that I felt roaring through me, pained because of the agony I was feeling, companion to me in my hurts just as she was everything else.

Her presence had not been enough to fully drive away the horror, for every time I awoke it was to find the dream was actually reality. But she was solely responsible for keeping me sane and letting me sob limply in her arms as she stroked my hair and spoke loving, sympathetic words to me.

This time…this time was infinitely worse…because this time she was not there…and the dream was not the same…and the pair of arms that I felt gripping my shoulders to steady me as I called out for her…were not hers.

This nightmare was not as old as the other, but it had been replaying for a year in my mind, and no doubt recent traumatic events had recalled it…perhaps through some underlying guilt that I was so happy again when in truth I was still wearing mourning for her.

I was far more helpless in this dream than in the last one…because I was a physician, and could do nothing. It was not a villain who had stolen away someone dear to my heart this time…but an illness that I could do nothing about.

At the instant I felt my pain was beyond bearable, the dream shattered, and I was thrown back into the real world with the same shock that always rattled me…her name escaping my hoarse throat as a strangled cry.

And arms were there…wrapping around my shaking shoulders, holding me tightly as I trembled and clung to them.

But they were not hers…oh heaven they were not hers…and I felt a sudden wracking of guilt at the thrill of joy when their sinewy strength identified them instantly.

The hot agony mixed with the utter relief and the mixture caused me to lose control completely. The emotions burned in my chest and my throat and emerged as a pressure that pushed the tears from my eyes.

I was sobbing, clinging, limp as a rag in the strong arms of my friend…not my wife…my friend. He was alive…miraculously alive!...but she was gone…oh good heaven.

"Watson?" The well known voice filled my ears again, anxious, still overly gentle as they had been from the first moment of his return only a week ago.

He wanted to help, would have done anything he could to relive my pain as well I knew…I had been willing to do so many times when our roles were reversed.

But how could I possibly convey to him the tearing horror that clawed at me from the inside? And how could he possibly help…when his awkward hold alone demonstrated his inability to show comfort?

And how could I possibly be so happy when she was dead?

I didn't know, I couldn't think, the last vestiges of the nightmare still clutched at me and I needed comfort from somewhere.

I could still see her pale face, small and pinched amid the bedclothes, a feeble smile and a whispery croak of my name and then she was gone…her hand falling limp in my own as her spirit fled her body…and I had been unable to breathe…unable to work the frozen lungs inside my chest.

"Watson!" my friend said more anxiously as I struggled to breathe even now, gasping and choking and feeling as though I would smother on my own fears and be violently ill all at once.

"Watson, it's alright old fellow…it's alright…it was a dream…"

Oh how I wished to heaven it had been…how I wished I did not have to feel this pain. But it wasn't a dream…it was real…her death was real…only his wasn't…only his had been a farce.

It seemed incredibly unjust that I should lose him, and then her before I got him back again, almost as though I had had to choose between them….would I truly have chosen him above her?

"It's alright Watson." He repeated desperately when I did not respond.

It wasn't…how did he know…how could he possibly understand? He had no idea what it felt like, the pain he had caused.

My tormenting emotions flared up suddenly and before I knew what I was doing I was struggling away from him, striking at him ineffectually while he stiffened with surprise.

I swore at him, cursed him roundly and he caught my wrists before I could strike him again, his pale face astonished and angry…though not, I thought, entirely at me.

How dare he! How dare he leave! How dare he come back and say that everything was alright when it clearly wasn't! How dare he die and distract me with pointless grief when I might have been able to see the signs of my wife's illness!

I knew…I knew the answer to every one of them. But it made it no easier, I wanted to blame someone…surely if I could blame him it wouldn't hurt so much. To place the blame anywhere…anywhere but with myself.

How incredibly stupid and childish a notion…he was my greatest friend. I didn't want him to feel this pain anymore than I wanted to be burdened with it myself. But how could I accept comfort from my friend…how could it be right to be happy…when she was dead…and when I had given so much of my time to him even after he'd died?

"Watson!" Holmes hissed worriedly, still gripping my wrists tightly though I'd ceased to fight him, and just as suddenly I didn't care, it hurt too much…I needed comfort from somewhere.

I took a shuddering breath, fought to get myself under control again, and gasped a reply. "Holmes."

He shuddered, letting out a sigh of relief and let go of my wrists again. "My dear fellow…are you alright?"

I nodded, and tried to sit up only to discover how badly I was shaking. His arms tightened around me again and at the unusual kindness I felt the embarrassingly renewed flow of tears.

He was there…he was real. I wasn't alone anymore. One of the nightmares at least was false.

"Easy Watson." He said, as I suppressed a sob. "Easy old fellow."

Good heaven…how was it possible to feel this sort of pain--pain I had thought long dead with my Mary, pain I had thought I was impervious too after Reichenbach—and still be alive?

How was it possible to feel this sort of pain in association with those I had loved to my fullest extent?

My heart had been ripped from me. Not once but twice. It had been dead. I had no more need of it for an entire year…and then suddenly it had burst into life when my friend had appeared before me and I had lost consciousness in my consulting room.

How was that right? How should I live after so much?

That was the question I needed answered…ever since Reichenbach, the one I had delayed and pushed aside…hoping I should never have to face it.

I had come back to life that day just as surely as my friend had…but I had forgotten how to live, and the raw pain of it would kill me again without help.

As though reading my thoughts, my friend pulled me closer, so that my hands could fist in his dressing gown and his arm could rest more comfortably on my shoulders.

"Alright Watson." He said, with a touch of his old authority. "Steady now, old fellow. You'll be alright."

Glad of some direction I nodded obediently and took another breath, steadying myself with his firmness.

"It's over Watson, it was a dream. Come around old fellow. You're alright now."

I swallowed with some difficulty and straightened away from him, though his arm never left my shoulders.

"Of course I am." I croaked, and like that my uncontrolled outpouring of emotions was allowed to disappear, to be forgotten without having ever been mentioned.

My friend nodded slowly and straightened with me. reaching out for my dressing gown and placing it over my shoulders.

And then without a word he took hold of my arm, and pulled me to my feet, murmuring softly, "Come on old fellow…I want to show you something."

We walked slowly out to the landing, down the first set of steps and then into the well-loved sitting room, where everything remained the same, preserved as it had always been, the armchairs, the breakfast table, the pipes and the tobacco slipper…even the blasted V. R. on the wall.

It was dark now, and shadowed, illuminated only by the dying coals from last night's fire.

It was somewhat chill, and I felt quite drained after both the nightmare and my reaction, so I was glad for Holmes' warm and supporting arm.

He let go of me a moment later, leaving me standing by the table and striding to the drapes which he pulled apart with abandon, flooding the room with a pale light.

I gasped, for I had negligently thought it to still be dark out, and this sudden emergence of dawn cast a silvery sheen over everything about the room, transforming it, freezing it…like a photograph…making me feel as though I were part of some timeless age caught forever in that flawless first hour of morning.

I sat, somewhat heavily on one of the chairs, and Holmes came to sit beside me, watching me intently with his brows furrowed, his gray eyes made even more pale and translucent by the extraordinary light.

"There were times, Watson, during my absence…when I thought I would go mad with the displacement and missing London…my own life…you."

I looked at him, saw that he was entirely sincere, his face softened.

"Sometimes I marveled that I was even alive…It seemed to me that I had, in reality, died at the falls…that I didn't know who I was anymore. And that it would be impossible to return to the life I had before."

The agony, the uncertainty that still tormented me sharpened in sympathy…perhaps he did know, in some measure at least, how I was feeling at this moment. And of course in his perceptive manner, he knew that was what was troubling me…perhaps it was still troubling him as well.

"What did you do?" I asked, for he was back…he had returned…he had to have some secret of how one carried on living after one's life was shattered.

He shook his head, his lips curving wryly in that old familiar manner that sent a thrill of joy through me even now.

"I continued, Watson. I could do nothing else. I cannot say that I lived, really, but I continued…and one morning, the morning I returned to London, In fact, I saw this and discovered that I was indeed alive."

He gave a little jerk of his head. And I looked obediently out at the cool, silver, morning air, and the swirling fogs.

Perhaps it was Holmes' suggestion, for I had seen many such dawns and felt no special emotion. But at that moment I felt something crack inside me, break apart…or rather open, and I was made quite breathless by the simple beauty of that timeless, London morning.

"The moment passes, Watson," Said Holmes said, voice hushed, "The darkness it the real illusion."

The sky continued to lighten, Holmes hand rested on my shoulder and the both of us watched as the blinding light of the new sun rose over the chimneys and smog of the city.


End file.
